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Place dossier plate
SheetAZ-PRESCOTT-AZ · Prescott, AZ 46,744 pop · income 48th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Prescott
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Prescott on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Huntsville · lowest
45,401
Huntsville · lowest
45,401 median HH income
40.1% of the leader · rank #1
Moundville · near
69,146
Moundville · near
69,146 median HH income
61.1% of the leader · rank #2
Southport · near
69,148
Southport · near
69,148 median HH income
61.1% of the leader · rank #3
Kendale Lakes · near
69,150
Kendale Lakes · near
69,150 median HH income
61.1% of the leader · rank #4
Prescott · this city
69,151
Prescott · this city
69,151 median HH income
61.1% of the leader · rank #5
Rosemont · near
69,153
Rosemont · near
69,153 median HH income
61.1% of the leader · rank #6
Catalina Foot… · highest
113,201
Catalina Foot… · highest
113,201 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Prescott on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 46,744.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Prescott - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Prescott places in the 48th percentile for household income and the 48th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
48th
percentile, household income
86th
percentile, home value
64th
percentile, median rent
48th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Prescott, AZ
Arizona's Prescott is a small city, with 46,744 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Prescott households earn a median of $69,151 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.3%. Home values in Prescott run a median of $528,500, and the median resident age is 60.3 years. 41.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 40.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 439 residential building permits were authorized in Prescott (Slowing), down 19% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Prescott reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1452.2 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Prescott's yearly average temperature at 55.4°F with 16.5 inches of precipitation per year and 10.2 inches of snowfall.
Arizona tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Arizona at 100.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,419 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Arizona run around $215, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Prescott workers runs 14.4 minutes, with 72.9% driving alone and 12.0% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 84.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Prescott's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from housing and income to population change to schools and households to reported crime to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Prescott, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Prescott?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Is Prescott growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +2,288 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 439 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The NCES join finds 17 public schools within the city match. 41.1% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
Which cities make useful reference points for Prescott?
Within Arizona, the closest population matches are Oro Valley (47,595 residents, $105,342 income); Prescott Valley (48,048 residents, $70,793 income); Sierra Vista (45,203 residents, $69,783 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Los Banos, CA (46,776 residents); Rowland Heights, CA (46,787 residents); Beavercreek, OH (46,787 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Prescott?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1452.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 36% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1117.1
Violent rate
335.1
Total reported rate
1452.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 55.4°F, with 16.5 inches of precipitation and 10.2 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Arizona is 84.5 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
Mean temperature
55.4°F
Annual precipitation
16.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
84.5
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the journey to work look like in Prescott?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 72.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 14.4 minutes.
Public transit
0.1%
Work from home
12.0%
Drive alone
72.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 16,745 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 6.3% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.7 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Arizona average
D
City profile score · Prescott, AZ
48/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Bachelor's+ share B+
41.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C
6.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$69,151
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living F
100.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime F
335 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Prescott profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 76/100 (B+) · 41.1%
Poverty rate: 57/100 (C) · 6.3%
Household income: 48/100 (D) · $69,151
Cost of living: 37/100 (F) · 100.7 index
Violent crime: 28/100 (F) · 335 /100k
Where Prescott sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Prescott's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Prescott highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Prescott, AZ (this city): home $528,500, crime 1,452/100k
Los Banos, CA : home $419,600, crime 2,047/100k
Beavercreek, OH : home $261,200, crime 2,068/100k
Gallatin, TN : home $343,700, crime 957/100k
Huntsville, TX : home $225,800, crime 2,045/100k
La Mirada, CA : home $763,200, crime 1,966/100k
Oro Valley, AZ : home $440,400, crime 1,200/100k
Prescott Valley, AZ : home $376,300, crime 994/100k
Sierra Vista, AZ : home $239,000, crime 1,881/100k
Bullhead City, AZ : home $196,900, crime 2,648/100k
Apache Junction, AZ : home $196,700, crime 1,938/100k
How does Prescott compare to other US cities?
Here's how Prescott stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income48% higher than other cities
Home value86% pricier than other cities
Median rent64% pricier than other cities
Safety48% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Arizona, Prescott ranks #22 of 61 Arizona cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Prescott against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arizona only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arizona-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Prescott near the bottom of Arizona's cities
Among the 394 Arizona cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Prescott ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Prescott only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#104 of 333
69th percentile in Arizona
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 394
0th percentile in Arizona
Median Home Value
#21 of 327
94th percentile in Arizona
Poverty Rate
#232 of 393
41st percentile in Arizona
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#47 of 394
88th percentile in Arizona
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Arizona only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
48th percentile nationally for median household income · 48th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Prescott's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Prescott's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Prescott's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$528,50014th percentilemore affordable than 14% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Prescott's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,915 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,174 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 7.6×, Prescott sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,915 of 15,516 and #3,174 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$69,151Prescott, AZ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Prescott, AZ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Prescott, AZ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)41.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)40.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
46,744
Median Income
$69,151
Median Home Value
$528,500
Median Age
60.3
Poverty Rate
6.3%
Labor force participation
40.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
41.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1452.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
335.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1117.1
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
55.4°F
Annual Precipitation
16.5"
Annual Snowfall
10.2"
Schools
Total Schools
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Prescott's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
46,132 residents
2021
47,234 residents
2022
47,696 residents
2023
47,943 residents
2024
48,232 residents
2025
48,420 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
439
housing units authorized
Single-Family
411
detached homes
Multifamily
28
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
9.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
542
434
108
$151.4M
2020
421
387
34
$126.6M
2021
461
383
78
$150.3M
2022
233
219
14
$101.3M
2023
373
221
152
$118.3M
2024
439
411
28
$154.0M
Permit volume decreased 19% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
14.4 minutes
Drive Alone
72.9%
Carpool
7.8%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
4.3%
Work from Home
12.0%
Other
2.9%
Based on 16,745 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arizona statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arizona at $215 (electricity about $131 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Arizona statewide averages, not a meter reading for Prescott. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arizona's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.7 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Prescott is $1,419/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arizona statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arizona statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Prescott sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Prescott compares to similar-size Arizona cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.